Simcity Developers Q.A Session 2: Recap

This weekend, Maxis developers answered a large swath of questions from angry long-time Simcity fans.  The main issues focused around the game requiring a constant Internet connection, as well as requiring Origin to play. On this post we will mainly focus on the features planned for this game’s release, but we will discuss the “DRM” and “Online” aspects in another post.

Weather and Seasons:

• Weather changes throughout the year.
• In the summer months, the heat evaporates the water table.
• In winter, the leaves fall off the tree and it’s generally cloudy and rainy.
• The rain replenishes the water table.
• Snow is not planned for release.

Regions and Multiplayer

• You can set up private regions to play by yourself or with friends.
• Smaller regions can hold 2-3 cities, while bigger regions hold up to 16 cities.
• Regions are designed by Maxis. Each region invokes different gameplay challenges players can choose to overcome. For example, there could be a river that splits your city in half and you can choose to build a bridge across it or build your city separately.
• You will automatically share power and water resources , but you only get paid when another city uses it.
• You can choose who you want to share city your city services with. (Police, Fire, Ambulance, School.)
• You can send money to other cities. If you go bankrupt, you can ask for loans from up to three banks.
• While you are bankrupt, you will go into “Budget Crisis” mode which gives you the option of requesting a loan or request help from other cities nearby. It will also help you identify which city services you should shut down.
• Buying and selling to the Global Market influences the prices of resources.
• Regions are around 16 kilometers.
• You can claim cities other players have abandoned.
• You can send resources to other cities in the region or sell them to the global market where the price fluctuates.
• Resources you can share among cities include: Workers, Jobs, Shoppers, Freight, Shops, Fire Coverage, Police Coverage, Jail, Garbage and Garbage Capacity, Recycling Services, Ambulance, Sick Sims, Air Pollution, Power, Water, Coal, Oil, Alloys, and Public Transportation.
• Great Works require multiple cities to share resources in order to build them.

Infrastructure and Transportation

• Various transportation options include; trains, planes, ferries, buses, light rail, streetcars, and park and rides.
• Subways are not planned for initial release.
• Cruise ships can bring medium and high wealth tourists to the city.
• GlassBox Engine’s pathfinding system will automatically reroute cars to avoid traffic. Commuters will generally try to use the main roads to get through the city and avoid smaller roads.
• Bridges are automatically created when you drag roads over water.
• Bridges can span over valleys too.
• You can make curvy bridges and build roads underneath them provided there’s enough space.
• You can place roads in any angle you want. Intersections range from 30 to 90 degrees.
• You can create roundabouts.
• Sims can travel to other cities for College/University.

Buildings and Landmarks

• Each city set in the Deluxe Edition gives you landmarks, and new residential, commercial, and ploppable buildings that match that style.
• Placing a Mining Headquarters changes the signs on factories.
• Placing a landmark, casino, or stadium will make hotels rise.
• You can see inside of buildings.
• Buildings were created from scratch, unlike previous Simcity games, it’s not a simple texture that you wrap around the building. Buildings are animated and rigged.
• The game’s ordinances are handled a bit differently, instead of ticking checkboxes, you can add specific modules to buildings.
• The Town Hall enables you to customize taxes universally around RCI and wealth classes.
• The City Hall enables you to customize RCI taxes separately.
• Educated Sims will install solar panels on their roofs. Education leads to high-tech industry.
• Homeless Sims seek out garbage, abandoned buildings, and parks.

Emergency Services

• When parts of your city is overrun with crime, you will see criminals roaming about, and graffiti will appear on buildings.
• Sims will also complain about crime.
• Arsonists will set buildings on fire.
• Robbers can cause alarms to go off.
• Robbers obey red stop lights (a simulation limitation)
• Police coverage isn’t radial, police cars will now go around the city to suppress crime and catch criminals in the act. If you need more police coverage, just add more cars to the police station.
• The Community Outreach Van and Detective Wing are modules you can add onto the Police Precinct.

Data Layers and Graphs

• Crime, Health, Sickness, Coal, Ore, Oil, Loans, Student Grades and Colleges are covered in Data Layers.
• They keep track of different Sim types including homeless, shopper, criminal, and tourist Sims.

Interesting Questions:

Q. Why do cities have large spaces between them?

A.  Partially it was graphical limitation – we can’t render the adjacent cities in full resolution. Also simulation fidelity. We can’t afford to fully simulate the adjacent cities. Seemed like pushing them a little further away was the best tradeoff.